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Monday, January 23, 2012

Wind Him Up and Let Him Go

Morning Readers,

The number one complaint I hear from other wives (when we happen to burrow under the fence and slip into public) seems to run along the lines of, "I love my husband, but I can't get him to fix a thing around the house." Now, some woman married Bob Vila and lived happily ever after, but the rest of us spend our days slipping notes under the door:

"Hey there, sweetie. I know you said you saw the front door fell off, but this is the second, consecutive Saturday I've found a homeless man on the couch."

"Salutations, it's me again. I realize you're the expert, but I think letting the kids sleep in their room with no windows may be a bit dangerous. We talked about this last year, but this is the eighth time the neighbors have brought the kids back."

"You know I hate being a nag, but the stove exploded, again...." And so on, and so forth. The great thing about these types of husbands is they usually have their day, find their spark, so to speak. Every now and then, Husband flies off the couch, thrusts his hand in the air, like he's just discovered electricity, and declares..as he did this weekend..."I'm going to go work on the basement!"

When we were first married, this used to bother me, as I wondered why he couldn't do this on a consistent basis, but, I've found , if I just let him go, he gets a surprising amount accomplished. The only problem is, once he gets going, it's hard to stop him...

For instance, it was all well and good he was cleaning up the basement, for it needed to be done, but, half way through the day, he got a crazy look in his eye, grabbed a trash bag, and charged at me. "What do we need to throw away?"

"I don't know."

Disgusted and riding his new found Good Housekeeping high, he looked me up and down. "What do you mean you don't know? There's gotta be a ton of stuff down there that needs to go right to the landfill."

I rubbed some coffee on my temples. "Sweetheart, I wasn't ready to put on pants today, let alone start labeling things "Trash" and "Trash We Can Still Use".

He marched over to the toy cabinet. "Yeah, what out this thing? And this?" Things began flying into the bag.

Horrified, I watched as he cleared out everything, and left precisely one plastic block and a stick, for the babies to play with. "They didn't need all that stuff."

I nodded. "Yes, I've heard breeding imagination in children is the devil's work."

Husband turned and huffed up the stairs to the office. I followed. "Hey," a voice called from behind the door. "You don't need this stuff, do you?"

Pushing the door open, I peeked my head around the corner. Husband stood in the middle of the office, stacking papers to the side and holding things up for my approval. "What about about this?"

"That's the title to the house."

"And this one?"

"The twin's birth certificates."

"Fine. What about this one?"

"Our marriage license. Go ahead and toss that in there."

All in all, it was a productive day, with me watching the kids take the house apart and Husband throw all of it away. Still, I stand by my previous rule that a man in motion must be kept in motion, lest he not motion ever again....